PROFESSOR FAWCETT ON REFORM.
PROFESSOR FAWCETT made a speech on Parliamentary reform at Brighton on Monday evening which, though it may serve his purpose well as a candidate for that con- stituency, will scarcely, we think, add to the political reputa- tion of that thoughtful and able writer amongst men of his own calibre. Mr. Fawcett takes a firm stand, like many other Parliamentary politicians, wherever he can feel the ground of economical science strong under his feet; but otherwise, also like them, he drifts into the democratic view, partly in deference to the beckonings of Liberal constituencies, and partly from want of some tangible intellectual principle to hold by, short of complete democracy. For instance, in this very speech he reiterated the expression of his mild in- tellectual contempt for the principles of the Financial Reform Association, and even ventured to assert, what is most true but not a very popular view, that clerks who receive quar- terly 1501. to 2001. a year, are really poorer and more heavily taxed men than working-men who receive their 31. or 41. a week. On matters of this kind we are sure that no wish to be popu- lar will warp Mr. Fawcett's clear intellect, or even keep him silent when he ought to speak. But the moment he passes the comparatively solid ground of figures and finance, you begin to see the thoughtful Liberal who is guided by facts only in his inferences, fading away into the hustings Liberal, whose convictions are, for want of a firmer root, considerably affected by his wish to secure popular support. We have re- iterated our desire for the admission of the working-classes into the pale of the representative system at times when no political change could seem less agreeable to the public. But we have always maintained that the true justice is to admit them to a share in the representative system, not to hand over to them the monopoly of the representative system, and we cannot conceive how any one who really values the princi- ple of national representation, can differ from us. Mr. Faw- cett apparently does not, but has recourse to the old and, we must say with respect, childish intellectual expedients for persuading us that the numerical magnitude of the working- class, if admitted en masse, would not in any way affect the influence exercised over the choice of a representative by the middle and more educated classes of the community. "It was another most singular fallacy," said Professor Fawcett, " to say that the extension of the suffrage to the working- mei would overwhelm the votes of every other section of the community. The argument implied that the working- classes would always unite themselves in a solid phalanx with motives and aims opposed to the rest of the community. There was no ground for saying that. Those who knew the
working-classes knew that upon all great questions affecting them there was a great difference of opinion among them. In regard to the question of the relation between capital and labour many working-men were strenuously opposed to trades' unions and strikes. In regard to the closing of places of public amusement on Sundays a great diversity of opinion also existed. In regard to the question of war with Poland, he had attended a meeting in the London Guildhall where a Tory Peer stood almost alone in expressing the desire that England should go to war on behalf of the Poles, and he never witnessed such a manifestation of enthusiasm as that expression had drawn from the working-men present. These illustrations would show that people had no right to assume the opinion of the wonking•classes on any great ques- tion would be this or that. He believed they took as much interest in politics, and had the interest of the country as much at heart, as any other section of the community." Of course we agree heartily with the last sentence. If we did not, we should not wish to see the working-classes repre- sented at all, for we do not think the indifferent or the selfish, who would either not regard electoral rights as a trust at all or abuse the trust for purposes of self-interest, would have any claim to be represented in a national assembly. But however true the last sentence may be it has nothing to do with what goes before it ;—and the question which Professor Fawcett will not face still remains un- answered,—is it true that if all your constituencies were as much working-class constituencies as the Tower Hamlets or Finsbury, the educated thought of the country would be as clearly and fairly represented as it is now ? If the working-men were three-fourths or four-fifths of every borough constituency, does Mr. Fawcett really in his heart believe that the representative body elected would contain as many and as various elements representative of the matured judgment of the country as it does now ? Of course it is true that on very many subjects the working- classes are themselves divided, that some of them would go with a politician of one school and others of them with a politician of another school. But party politics apart, is it not certain that, for either party in politics, candidates of a different mental cast from those selected by the middle or higher classes would be generally preferred by these huge constituencies? Would not the masses of the working-classes, if the masses could choose,—we are not talking of constituen- cies of select operatives who would probably choose as acutely as any constituency in the kingdom,—always lean towards men of a more rough and ready way of looking at things, more influenced by strong prejudice and less by calm judgment, more like the lute Mr. Duncombe or Mr. Ernest Jones, or to take modern Tories, Mr. Roebuck (we are sure he will not object to the name), or perhaps even in bad cases Mr. Busfield Ferrand, than like deliberate thinkers of any school, such as Mr. Austin Bruce, or Lord Stanley, or Mr. Gosohen, or Lord Robert Cecil, or any other man of restrained considering intellect ? Are not the big constituencies even now notable as a matter of fact for choosing a bad class of representative,—a man who is apt to be rather a delegate than a representative on points insisted on by the constituency, and to make political capital on all other points after the de- mocratic fashion ? Is it not in the nature of things that large masses of men who are quite too numerous for the exercise over them of any personal influence, and too little instructed to criticize closely the intellectual calibre of their representatives will not prefer the cautious deliberating intellects which best represent the educated thought of the country ? The same might be truly said of the ten-pound householders,—but they, at least in the smaller boroughs, choose as much by the light of local reverence and respect for families whom they have long known, as by any judgment of their own. A very extensive suffrage would entirely sweep away all that kind of personal influence even where it is good and wholesome,— and would assuredly substitute for it very little discrimination in the choice of persons, though the political views of the electors on certain great questions might be defined enough, —perhaps even too much for the intellectual freedom of the representative.
But next, though the intellectual tone of the representative rather than his political views will be the thing most affected by putting the whole electoral power into the hands of one and that the least educated class,—it is also very far from true that the political interests of the various elements in the nation have no close relation to the class to which they belong. We will do the working-classes the justice to believe that even if they absorbed the whole electoral power they would not seek,—at least not at first,—to throw any undue share of taxation on the wealthy,—though we should not be willing to trust any one class high or low with complete and virtually irresponsible power on that head for any long time together, because the prolonged consciousness of belonging to a majority quite beyond the control of the rest of the nation is apt at last to blunt the delicacy even of the most upright class- conscience. But put the mode of taxation aside. Does Mr. Fawcett mean to assert that on questions of expen- diture on great public works for instance,—say for the benefit and enjoyment of the masses, and also giving profit- able employment to a very large number of the labouring poor,—there would be no united class-opinion ? Look at the case of Geneva. Since the year 1846, when M. Fazy intro- duced the widest principles of democracy into that atomic State, the little commonwealth consisting, we believe, of 70,000 souls at most, has incurred for public works a debt of twenty millions of francs (or 800,0001. sterling), being at the rate of upwards of eleven pounds sterling a head in eighteen years for public works in several instances undertaken to enrich its favourites only. The equivalent debt to be incurred for expenditure on public works in England in the same time would have caused an addition of some 250 millions sterl- ing in the same period to our national debt. Does this read us no lesson on the danger of confiding the whole elec- toral power to any one class? Mr. Bright says, and no doubt he is in some degree right, that while the whole constitutional power remained in the hands of the aristocracy the hard-earned taxes of the working and middle classes were squandered on the younger sons of the English nobility. Well, if that be the danger,—and it was the danger,—of excluding the middle and working class from substantial electoral power, it is folly to assert that there will be no similar danger in excluding the higher and middle class from substantial electoral power,—we say substantial, because it is no more a substantial power to belong to a very small permanent minority, than to be without a vote at all. Mr. Fawcett has made the mistake so universal among our Parliamentary Reformers of ignoring altogether a problem which threatens grave difficulties to the statesman. The working classes have a right to be represented,—a right which we will never cease to urge. But they have not a right to extinguish the representation of the numerically less important but equally weighty interests and more carefully considered views, which on many questions at least are not likely to find any large number of adherents among the masses of the people. We ask for a representation of the British nation, not merely of the British millions,—of the educated mind of the nation no less than of the popular heart. And though it may be convenient for a candidate for a popular constituency like Mr. Fawcett to talk round, and obscure, the real issue, this is not the less the problem which the states- man who proposes our next Reform Bill must encounter and solve.